Double Screen Board

Honey bees produce queens on three occasions: when the colony reproduces through swarming, when the colony replaces its queen through supersedure, and in emergencies when the colony loses its queen. We can make colony divisions and produce queens by setting up hive conditions for a colony to produce an emergency queen. Honey bees detect the presence of their queen by the queen substance pheromone that she secretes. This pheromone is passed through the hive by touch, unlike her other pheromones which are aromas carried in the air. The queen’s retinue of attendant workers constantly stroke the queen, gathering queen substance pheromone and passing it to nearby workers. The pheromone is passed from bee to bee throughout the hive. As long as the bees receive queen substance pheromone, the colony is content. If the queen is not present in the hive, the colony detects her loss within one hour and begins replacing her within four hours.

Beekeepers employ the loss of queen substance pheromone to perform colony divisions known as “walk-away splits.” They can accomplish the production of a new queen and make a colony division using a double screen board. This simple device is a board with two screens separated so that queen substance cannot be passed between hive brood boxes. When placed between the brood boxes of a strong hive with bees and brood on both sides of the screens, one half of the hive is content, and the other half feels that it is queenless and starts producing an emergency queen from a young worker larva. This larva is fed royal jelly throughout its development into a virgin queen. After its emergence as an adult, the virgin queen exits the hive for her mating flights through an entrance in the double screen board. She will begin laying eggs in about one month from the time of starting the procedure. In today’s photo workers return at the double screen board entrance with pollen to feed the new queen’s brood.

--Richard

Wrangling Movie Bees

When honey bees swarm, it is truly a fascinating and memorable event. Thousands of bees suddenly exit their hive and fly, circling in what appears to be complete disorder. After a few minutes, the bees converge in a loose ball of bees hanging from a nearby structure, often a tree limb. Honey bees festoon, or “hold hands,” with each other in the swarm; each bee’s six limbs is equipped with two hooks, well suited to grasp a tree limb or another bee’s hooks. The swarm remains in this unsupported state for a few hours or, sometimes, for a few days while scout worker bees search for a suitable cavity to serve as a permanent home for bees. Once a desirable cavity is found, the bees fly in mass to their new nest.

I had the pleasure of assisting Jeremy and Emily Bemis set-up a scene involving swarming honey bees for filming on a movie set. Jeremy and I opened a strong hive, and Emily spotted the queen. We placed the queen inside a small queen cage and carried it along with the hive and bees to the movie set, leaving behind one hive body to accept returning foragers. We wired the caged queen onto a cedar tree limb selected for the appropriate camera shot. Next, we shook and brushed all of the bees onto the queen cage. Natural swarms are held together by the pheromones of the queen and some of the workers. Soon, the bees festooned into a typical swarm shape around the caged queen. To keep the bees hydrated and lessen their flying, we periodically sprayed the man-made swarm with sugar water syrup. The bees performed their part in the movie as directed. Afterward, we returned the bees to their hive by placing the caged queen inside the hive and brushing in a large number of workers as well. Workers fanned their Nasanov gland pheromones to call the remaining bees. The photogenic bees returned home after dark.

--Richard

Gathering the Swarm

Strong and healthy honey bee colonies divide to create new colonies, find new homes, and expand their range in a process that we call swarming. The spring of the year is the time when swarming occurs most often. When a swarm of bees leaves its hive, it is the result of about a month of preparation. The actual timing of the swarming event often follows a period of rainy days. Wet springs, like the Mid-South is experiencing this year, seem to produce more swarms than dryer seasons. One reason for the increase in swarming may be the abundance of available nectar from certain plants during rainy seasons. If the bees have plenty of nectar to forage, they may fill their hive’s brood nest with honey leaving the queen few cells to lay eggs. The resulting brood nest congestion is the principal trigger to swarm.

Typically, when a honey bee colony swarms, about half of the bees rapidly exit the hive along with the old queen. The individual bees fly in circles for a few minutes, and then they gather in a resting place on a tree limb or structure. The swarm remains in this location for a few hours or, sometimes, a few days. During this waiting period, scout bees leave the clustered swarm and search for a suitable cavity to serve as the colony’s new hive. The entire swarming event is controlled by the combined pheromones of the queen and worker bees. These pheromones are used to gather the swarm together at a resting point, and they also help the swarm of bees fly together to their new hive. Once the swarm arrives at their new hive, workers raise their abdomens and fan their wings to emit a plume of Nasanov gland pheromone to direct bees to their new home. In today’s photo, Jeremy Bemis and I capture a swarm. With the queen inside, workers are fanning Nasanov gland pheromone to call bees into the hive.

--Richard

Harvesting Honey

It is honey harvest time, and there are many ways to accomplish the removal of the honey from the hives. When deciding upon a particular method to use, the beekeeper should consider the time available, amount of labor required, and the stress placed on the bees. Stress is a concern, as honey bees under stress give off alarm pheromone which attracts small hive beetles from great distances. Small hive beetles are honey bee nest scavengers; and they often wait in one hive, even a strong one, until they receive pheromones signaling that a colony is queen-less or under stress.

All methods of removing honey from the bee hive require the beekeeper to remove the bees from the frames of honey. A common method of removing honey from the bee hive used by many beekeeping operations employs an offensive-smelling chemical placed on a fume board to drive the bees from the honey supers. This is often matched with the use of a blower to blow the bees from the frames. The method is effective, but somewhat stressful on the bees. A more gentle method that we use at Peace Bee Farm involves removing the bees, one frame at a time, using a brush. Flick the bees gently off their feet with the brush and they will fly back into the hive. Long, sweeping motions roll the bees and quickly upset them. Smoke can be used to help drive the bees down into the hive. We control the moisture in the honey by only harvesting frames that are almost completely capped with beeswax. Bee escapes fit into the oval hole in a bee hive inner cover. The bee escape can be placed under the supers; and when the bees leave the super, they cannot return. The beekeeper returns on another day to harvest the honey. However, bee escapes are only effective when the weather is cool enough for the bees to leave the supers to cluster together in the brood nest at night.

--Richard

Pheromones Protect the Bee Hive

Since honey bees are social insects living in large colonies, communication among the individual bees is important. Honey bees communicate by detecting vibrations, tastes, and odors with their acute senses. The use of chemical odors seems to be the honey bees’ greatest means of communications. Odors that are secreted by glands and sensed by members of the same species are called pheromones. There are two times when you can find bees standing with their abdomens raised and fanning their wings. One time is when the bees are fanning across glands located in the abdomen to release pheromones to guide bees to the hive. The other time that bees fan their wings across their raised tails is when they are alarmed. Alarmed guard bees can be found on the inner covers of hives when the outer covers are removed. In cool weather, like we are currently experiencing, the hive covers often open with a loud pop, as the propolis bee glue on them is brittle. The bees in the hive detect the vibration through sensors in their legs and are alerted. Alerted bees differ in appearance from bees fanning to guide bees to the hive in that alerted bees extend the sting.

Click on today’s photo to see guard worker bees posed on the inner cover of a bee hive with their abdomens in the air and their stings exposed. With the sting exposed, the bees fan air across a small drip of alarm pheromone. Other bees in the hive detect the pheromone odor and immediately prepare to defend the hive. When the beekeeper sees the guard bees with their stings exposed, he or she should be aware that the colony is unsettled and defensive. Usually, the bees can be calmed with a little smoke, which interferes with the detection of the alarm pheromone. At other times it is advisable to close the hive and wait till another day to open the bee hive.
--Richard

Honey Bees are Defensive

When beekeepers meet those who don’t handle honey bees, the first question asked is usually, “How often do you get stung?” Many in the public feel that honey bees are to be left alone because they sting. True, honey bees are stinging insects. They belong to the same order as wasps, hornets, yellow jackets, bumblebees, and numerous solitary bees. Generally, honey bees only sting when mashed or while defending their hive. Children learn at an early age that stepping barefooted on bees foraging in clover will guarantee a sting. Also, honey bees will sting any time that we carelessly mash a bee with our hands. Honey bees do vigorously defend their hive from attack from other insects, mammals, and even beekeepers. Carnivorous wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets regularly attempt to enter bee hives. Robber honey bees from other colonies may be the greatest threat to the hive. Hives are also attacked by skunks, raccoons, and, in some areas, bears. Beekeepers are considered an intruder by the bees unless the beekeeper moves gently while manipulating the hive. Beekeepers regularly use smoke to interrupt the pheromone communications of the guard bees. In defense of their hive, the guard bees use their barbed sting, planting it firmly in the skin. Attached to the intruder’s skin, the sting contains a venom sac, muscles to continue to pump the venom, and alarm pheromone glands. The pheromones alert other guard bees and mark the intruder’s location. Stinging an intruder is fatal to the guard bee, but she helps defend the colony by summoning other guard bees to multiply the number of available stings.

When I came across field thistle in bloom, it was during a brief intermission in periods of rain. When the sun broke out, butterflies dropped in to collect thistle nectar. It’s been a rainy summer. Harvesting honey during weather conditions not suited for opening the hives, I found myself the target of guard bees defending their nest. They performed well.
--Richard

The Queen's Retinue

Honey bees, being social insects, require extensive communications to conduct the life of the colony. Most of the communication is accomplished by chemical odors that the bees detect. These chemicals which control the behavior of the bees are known as pheromones. Most of the pheromones are volatile odors which pass through the air and are detected by the bees. At least one of the most important pheromones for controlling the colony is passed among the bees of the hive by touch. This pheromone is called “queen substance.” This pheromone stimulates brood rearing and foraging by the honey bees. It is a sex attractant, and it determines when replacement queens are produced. Queen substance helps stabilize swarms of honey bees, and it affects the behavior of the queen’s attendant bees.

The queen bee’s attendants, known as her retinue, surround her at all times. These worker bees feed her, groom her, and remove her waste. One thing that can readily be observed is that the bees of the retinue regularly stroke the queen’s body, usually along the abdomen, with their legs and antennae. What they are doing is collecting the queen substance pheromone that the queen secretes and passing it along to the other bees in the hive. If the queen is dies or is removed from the hive, the colony will know of her loss within an hour by the lack of queen substance. They will begin queen replacement within four hours. If you click on the photo you can see a young queen, marked with green, being surrounded by a retinue of at least 22 worker bees. The retinue can be identified because the attendant bees usually face the queen in a circle. They pose like football players in a huddle.
--Richard